By Dr Jacob Tsado
Conflict reporting is a major preoccupation of the media with serious implications for the society. Nigeria continues to witness incidents of ethno-religious and other identity-based conflicts which tear at its fragile unity and obviate efforts at national unity and national development.
Ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria are not only disruptive and distractive of national development, but hold grave implications for sub-regional security should the country become a failed state
Ethno-religious conflicts have been particularly prevalent in north central Nigeria, the area popularly known as the Middle Belt region. The multiplicity of ethnic groups within the region, as well as the religious pluralism of the area, coupled with widespread prebendal politics, which further aggravate conflicts in the zone have been held by scholars as the main sources of the challenge.
One issue that has been a subject of debate and enquiry is the reportage of these conflicts by the Nigerian press, particularly, their role in escalating or minimising the conflicts. The ferocity and frequency of these conflicts and their devastating impact make it imperative to explore issues underlying them, particularly the mediation of the conflicts by the Nigerian press. This is the objective of this article.
This study is centred on violent ethnic and religious conflicts in Jos, the capital city of Plateau State. The focus on Jos is informed both by the strategic location of the city as a centre of the Middle Belt and as a highly-contested territory in the conflicts.
The choice is also based on the intensity and frequency of ethno-religious conflicts in the city within the first decade of Nigeria’s return to civil rule and the wide coverage the conflicts received in the Nigerian press. The time frame for the research, 2001-2011, is a ten-year period coinciding roughly with a little over the first decade of democratisation in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
Tensions between ethnic groups rooted in allocation of resources, electoral competition, fears of religious domination and contested land rights amalgamated into an explosive mix in the city.
Selection of newspapers
The newspapers are Daily Trust and Nigerian Tribune. The analysis is based on the reportage of the Jos Conflicts which occurred in January/March 2010. The unit of analysis is the story, including hard news, feature and opinion pieces.
Critical Discourse Analysis of Daily Trust’s coverage of ethno-religious conflicts
The feature article analysed from Daily Trust is titled:
“Jang, the media and the genocide in Jos this time” (Daily Trust, January 20, 2010, back page).
This article is chosen because it is incredibly rich in Nigeria’s discursive challenges and illuminates the various conflicts and contradictions within the polity. And, as would be demonstrated, its tone and style rhyme with the general reportorial and editorial direction of the newspaper in the coverage of the conflicts under study.
Textual Analysis
The headline of the story is instructive in its ringing declaration: Jang, the media and the genocide on the Plateau this time.
The article has employed very skilful narrative, rhetorical and grammatical devices to put across the main theme of the write-up, which is that a Christian state governor has mobilised his Christian populace to attack in cold blood a helpless Muslim minority population and that this “genocidal” attack, though clear and evident, has been deliberately and systematically ignored or down-played by the Nigerian press which is biased against the Hausa/Muslim.
The write-up has 19 paragraphs spread over two columns with a central ‘blurb’ and published on the back cover of the 20th January 2010 edition of the newspaper. It is the main article on the back cover published as a regular “The Wednesday Column.” A key word in this headline is genocide which carries a definite article.
The first sentence introducing the subject matter of the write-up is definitive that there has been genocide.
Therefore, it is important to examine such usages in the newspaper article. In talking about “the genocide that has been perpetuated against Muslims…” the author employs presupposition to make the reader assume that there is an established case of genocide. This way, the article could mask the problematic nature of the usage, and is able to proceed with the argument without the need to clarify or define the “genocidal” situation.
In setting the scene, the article employs a historical analogy (paragraphs 1-6) to draw a parallel between the infamous Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh, and Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State. Timothy McVeigh, according to the article, was motivated in his acts by vengeance and the desire to settle scores as narrowly defined by his peculiar sense of justice and his deranged personality.
In using this analogy, the article implies that vengeance and hatred of Hausa/Fulani Muslims motivated government policy in Plateau State and that this explains the incidents of violent conflicts in the state.
This position is spelt out using the active voice: as governor he has openly taken sides with his kith and kin and those of (his faith). Other elements of the active voice include the following:
“He seems to wilfully encourage his kith and kin to declare open season on the others” (paragraph 9)
“They seemed hell bent on finishing what they started on November 28, 2008” (paragraph 10).
“The willful manner with which the authorities in the state have allowed its own citizens and residents to be hunted down, killed and maimed and their properties destroyed” (paragraph 13)
“As usual Jang, the commissioner of police and their accomplices can rely on the media to downplay the genocide this time just like they did the last time” (paragraph 15)
Through this device, the article clearly establishes agency with regards to whom it holds responsible for the alleged genocide.
Another rhetorical device used is ironic distancing device, “so-called,” to identify and contest certain terms/words in popular usage. Most paragraphs from paragraph 10 contain the expression “so-called settlers” or “so-called Muslim settlers” and “indigenes.” What this portrays, in effect, is that even though these usages are common in the national political lexicon, the author considers them as unreal or illegal or unrecognized. Examples of such usages and contestations include:
“As at the time of this writing hundreds of so-called settlers have been murdered in cold blood”
“As usual the so-called settlers have been blamed by the state authorities and the preponderance of the media”
“…the crisis started over an objection by some indigenes to an attempt by a so-called settler…to renovate his house”
“Here it is significant that this wanton killings of so-called settlers and the destruction of their property…”
The frequent usage of this device confronts a very contentious issue in the polity relating to citizenship and the rights and privileges flowing therefrom. The indigene-settler phenomenon is a serious source of conflict in Nigeria.
This situation is however best understood within the wider contexts and fault lines: a population divided between two world religions, multiplicity of ethnic groups, economic rivalries between herdsmen and farmers and extreme inequality in wealth distribution.
These boundaries sometimes coincide, as in Jos where some of the fighting is between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian Berom farmers. Thus, in Jos, religion, ethnicity and economics are powerfully at play igniting and reinforcing conflicts carefully orchestrated by politicians. It is not surprising that the Daily Trust, a northern newspaper, would take a position which vigorously disputes the categorisation of Hausa as settlers.
A device used prominently in this write-up is known as “naming.” The name by which an author or article identifies a person or phenomenon is critical to the reader’s conception of, and to an extent, attitude to, that object. People possess a range of identities, which could be used to describe them accurately, but not with the same meaning. The option chosen in a text might therefore serve specific social or political objectives.
Naming therefore has an ideological implication for creating or perpetuating stereotypes and world-views. The descriptions given to people or things also influence the picture or imagery that emerges of the person or object so described.
Employing this device, the article weaves its analysis around the personality of the state governor who is identified mainly by his last name, “Jang.” In backgrounding the governor’s official titles and paraphernalia, the article probably seeks to focus searchlight on the governor’s personality and character, “his humanness.”
Only once is he referred to as “Governor Jang” (paragraph 13) where the author discloses about him meeting with two of his (indigenous) predecessors in office, and the outcome of that meeting is the escalation of the conflict. This would suggest that Jang, employing his full executive authority, co-opted two of his predecessors to orchestrate “this wanton killings of so-called settlers and destruction of their properties.”
In an earlier article titled The Media and the genocide in Jos (December 3, 2008) the author had provided context for Governor Jang’s alleged grievance against Hausa/Fulani Muslims and therefore revenge mission.
According to him, Jang harbours “deep hatred for the Hausa/Fulani who are predominantly Muslim” just like other minority Christian leaders “from what they regard as historical wrong done their forefathers by a colonial system that supported feudal rule in the north.” He continues the argument:
“For Jang, this historical wrong took a personal dimension when he was retired in August 1990. This only seemed to have deepened his hatred towards the “hegemonists” (Daily Trust, December 3, 2008).
In paragraph 10 of the current article, the whole incident under focus is described ominously as a “finishing” operation: “they (Christian indigenes) seemed hell-bent on finishing what they started on November 28, 2008.”
This conjures a picture of a carefully planned, premeditated operation consistent with the theme of genocide which is the focus of the article. Moreover, in this genocidal operation, the governor, the state police commissioner (a Christian) and the media are all “accomplices” (11) who either turn a blind eye or down-play the weight of this human tragedy.
The feature article analysed above is typical of the tone and orientation of the newspaper’s coverage of the incidents, both in its news, feature and opinion pages. There is a clear pattern, for example, of focusing reports on the personality, rather than the office, of Governor Jang, in a way that questions his integrity and capacity. Prominent headlines in this regard include:
•Imams want Federal Government to remove Jang
•Jos: when Governor Jang lost control of his domain
•Fulanis massacred in front of Jang’s house
•I blame Jang for the Plateau crisis
•Plateau Fulani Ardo allege genocide against their people by Berom terrorists
An article published December 5, 2008, titled Jos and Epidemic of Insanity (1) devoted two full columns to speculating about Jang’s plans to commit genocide. According to the author, an influential columnist of the newspaper, “Jang’s plans for genocide, reportedly hatched several months ago, had two recognisable steps.”
It alleged that the elections were fixed for a Thursday instead of “the usual weekend, so that the announcement of the result of the rigged poll would be made the following day, a Friday, the Muslim day of congregational worship, and is expected to inflame passions and lead to protest, and, if that happens, the ethnic cleansing machine will register maximum casualties.”
Furthermore, the narrative and reportorial style, which foregrounds one side of the story while downplaying competing voices, is evident in prominent reports on the conflict. For example, the first story of the 2010 crisis (January 18, 2010) had a front-page lead story with the headline: “Many killed in Jos violence.” The first paragraph reports that “at least a dozen people were killed and many others injured in fresh sectarian violence in Jos, plateau State, yesterday…”
The paper attributes the information to the police and unnamed “witnesses” who “told Daily Trust that the crisis erupted …after an argument on the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the November 2008 clashes.” However, in the following paragraph, the report quotes the official of an Islamic organisation disclosing that “there were 10 corpses at the Central Mosque and 16 people were taken to the hospital with gun-shots wounds.” The official also said “they had received a report of over 20 corpses lying at Angwan Duala.”
The next paragraph quotes Reuters news agency which it said “counted 12 bodies at the Jos University Teaching Hospital and at the Central Mosque, and the agency said there were reports of as many as 20 dead and several houses destroyed.” The report continues by quoting resident and local journalist, Musa Habibu (a Muslim, by the name), who told AFP news agency: “I was at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, where I saw nine dead bodies and six people injured with machete cuts on admission.”
What is noticeable in this report is that in the very first news story on the incident, the newspaper quoted Muslim sources mainly while casualties were identified as either at the Central Mosque or in the hospital, giving the impression that such casualties were all Muslim. The use of figures in scattered fashion is probably to convey the picture of confusion and magnitude of loss: 10 corpses at the central mosque…16 people taken to hospital…20 corpses lying at Angwan Duala…12 bodies at the hospital and mosque…20 dead.
The following day, January 19, 2010, the paper had another lead story: “How Jos crisis began, by man on the spot.” The first paragraph sets the tone for the religious conflict discourse:
“The crisis that engulfed the Plateau state capital of Jos on Sunday started at Dutse Uku on the outskirts when Christian youth tried to stop a Muslim man from renovating his house that was destroyed in November 2008 riot, according to Alhaji Kabir Mohammed, the man at the centre of the storm.”
The story which runs into 10 paragraphs in two pages is devoted exclusively to narrating the conflict from the view point of this one man. On January 20, 2010, the paper had another story, “JNI counts 138 bodies.” The first three paragraphs are based exclusively on reports obtained from Muslim sources, particularly Jama’atul Nasril Islam (JNI). In the lead, the newspaper reported that JNI had counted 138 bodies from the skirmish. This pattern of reporting is replicated in most of the other stories on the incident.
The micro-level analysis shows a pattern in which the narrative focuses attention on the personality of the state governor and weaves around this the allegation that the crisis in Jos Plateau is carefully planned genocide against Muslim Hausa/Fulani. The style also foregrounds one side of the story and downplays or confronts competing narrations of the situation.
This style appears narrowly focused and does not engender alternative problem analysis which could offer clearer perspectives on the causes of ethno-religious conflicts and their possible solutions. In the next section, I examine the narrative of the Nigerian Tribune, a southern newspaper with a contrasting worldview to that of Daily Trust.
Critical Discourse Analysis of the Nigerian Tribune Coverage of Ethno-Religious Conflicts
The Nigerian Tribune is a southern-based daily newspaper whose editorial bias is towards southern Nigeria and is “Christian” in orientation. This contrasts with the Daily Trust. The opinion article I have chosen to analyse in detail is titled:
“Still on Jos Crisis” (Nigerian Tribune, March 8, 2010, p.18
The article attempts to explain the conflict within its perennial nature and its wider socio-political ramifications. In constructing the title of the article as “Still on the Jos Crisis,” the author nominalises the issue, suggesting that the article is not focusing on any particular angle. “Jos crisis” immediately assumes a distinct and independent phenomenon. Indeed, a survey of many newspaper stories within this period shows that “Jos” has almost become a metaphor for “crisis” and stories are woven around this word in ingenious, though mostly sensational, manner.
In this respect, the term “Jos” or associated phrases such as Jos violence, Jos carnage, Jos Mayhem, Plateau crisis, Jos massacre etc. have been over-lexicalised in the Nigerian press as synonym for violence, instability and religious intolerance. This has ideological implications for the perception of the state and its people if such an image becomes ingrained in the national lexicon contrary to the state’s perception of itself as “the home of peace and tourism.”
Even when a conflict or incident occurs in another local council far away from Jos town, newspapers still utilise the catchphrase “Jos” in constructing the headline or lead, probably to gain attention and patronage.
The opening paragraph of the story confirms this concern as it laments:
“Plateau, a state once known for peace, tolerance and harmony – by both ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’ has been plagued by an orgy of hatred, hostility and bloodshed in recent times.”
Like in the Daily Trust, this article puts the words “indigenes” and “settlers” in inverted commas to underscore the problematic nature of their usage and the discourses around such usages. Unlike the Daily Trust, in paragraph 2, the article does not label the conflict as genocide but seeks to contextualise and situate it within a wider national controversy. According to the article:
“Many have presented the crisis as an isolated, state-backed cleansing of Muslim minority by Christian majority. They have tried to play down on the criminality, violence and carnage of Maitatsine, Boko Haram and other jihadist groups in other states of northern Nigeria.
While the article has attempted to give the conflict scope, it has however not stated categorically if, in its opinion, there might actually have been a “state-backed cleansing of Muslim minority” and if this was in retaliation for the “criminality, violence and carnage of … Boko Haram…in other northern states.”
This also raises the worrying question as to whether the illegal and criminal activities of a group of fanatics in one part of the country justify unprovoked killings in another part of the country and whether it is right for citizens to take the laws into their hands in any circumstance. This last question should be considered within the context of the apparent inability or failure of government to protect citizens in crisis times, leading to all sorts of self-help initiatives by communities to defend themselves.
It is instructive that a writer in the Nigerian Tribune advocated that Christians in northern Nigeria should rise to defend themselves as a panacea to incessant attacks from Muslim fanatics.
One of the features of this article is its frequent reliance on vague or indirect sources to make serious attributions or generalisations. For example, paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 all begin with such phrases as: ‘many people have presented the crisis’; ‘some people have attributed the problem to’; ‘many analysts have it look as if’; ‘many analysts have failed to point out’; ‘I agree with those who have said that.’
In the instance of the article under consideration, the repeated use of such vague phrases along with collective nouns such as ‘many analysts’ and ‘many people’ enables the writer to legitimise claims and points of view without actually showing any rigorous evidence to substantiate such claims.
It is based on such a vague source (“those who said”) that a serious claim like the one quoted below was made: “I agree with those who said that the Muslim settlers’ community sustained heavy casualties in the latest outbreak of violence.” The author relies on “those who said” to assert that there were “heavy casualties” suffered by the Muslim settlers’ community.
It then attempts to justify this unsavoury situation on the arguments of another vague source (an unnamed “anyone”). “…Anyone who has been following the conflict in Jos and Plateau State as a whole would know that the local community, including settlers from other ethnic and religious backgrounds has recorded heavy casualties in the past.”
The Nigerian Tribune article characterises the conflict episode as “the Plateau butchery” which is a nominalisation, both concealing the agency and minimising the effect (as it is able to avoid uncomfortable questions like: who is the butcher? Who was butchered? How was the butchery perpetrated?).
In concealing the agent, the sentence masks responsibility for the action and provides leverage for the politicisation of the issue which follows. The situation, as it were, is depersonalised and materialised, wherein the focus no longer is on human beings being killed, by other human beings, but on religious balancing between Christian and Muslim casualties and political calculations between Christian and Muslim politicians.
In terms of the relationship of this article to the general reportorial pattern of the newspaper, it would be noticed, for instance, that the reports and articles in the Nigerian Tribune frequently use “Jos” as a metaphor for “crisis” and “conflicts.” The use of vague sources and generalisations to make serious claims has earlier been noticed in the reportorial style of the paper.
For example, a headline news story of September 10, 2001 titled: “Ex-Head of State, Governor behind Jos massacre” (Nigerian Tribune, Sept 29, 2001, front page lead). This was a front page banner headline in which the newspaper alleged that a former head of state and a serving state governor were the sponsors and master-minds of the 2001 ethno-religious.
The report however was based on mere speculations lacking factual proof to support the huge assertions and was credited to unnamed stakeholders. Another instance of the use of generalisations is associated with the story headlined: “Tension mounts in Jos over council’s status” published by the paper on September 6, 2001. Here, the paper relied on one source in a rather sensitive story with no attempts to reach the other parties.
The discursive strategy of Nigerian Tribune features mainly the use of generalisations, vague sources and nominalisations in the coverage of the conflicts. The result is a style which tends towards the superficial treatment of issues. One similarity between the two newspapers is that they both seem to contest the indigene-settler dichotomy, although the Tribune does not label the conflicts as genocide neither does it focus its narrative on any one personality. I will explore these contrasts more fully in the next section which deals with the social context of the coverage.
Comparative Analysis of coverage
The perceptions and characterisation of the conflicts by Daily Trust and Nigerian Tribune are radically different in several respects. Whereas Daily Trust sees clear-cut genocide against Muslims, motivated primarily by an “ideology of hatred for the so-called Muslim settlers” by a Christian governor and populace, the Nigerian Tribune has a different thesis. According to it, the violence on the Jos Plateau is a response to “Islamic partisanship that holds sway in most states of northern Nigeria.”
Militant Islam, it argues, has led to the emergence of militant Christianity. “The Islamic partisanship in Muslim majority states has caused the emergence of Christian partisanship in Plateau and other Christian majority states,” the paper contends.
To drive this perspective home, the article conclusively takes a position diametrically opposed to Daily Trust’s worldview:
The crisis in Plateau is intricately linked to, and caused by, the political and jihadist Islam that prevails in northern Nigeria. The Plateau butchery cannot be resolved without rooting out militant and political Islam. Muslim politicians must stop using elective positions to further Islamic agenda and implement Islamic law. Muslim politicians must learn to uphold democracy and universal human rights and stop foisting Islamic theocracy on the people.
An interesting issue is Daily Trust’s perception of the reportorial style and editorial position of other Nigerian newspapers on the conflict. Paragraph 15 of the article analysed, for example, claims that
“the police and their accomplices can rely on the media to downplay the genocide just like it did the last time.”
This statement suggests not just frustration with the dominant press narrative of the conflict, but also touches on the history of the Nigerian press in which media power and ownership pattern are historically skewed in favour of the southern parts which control what is popularly known as the “Lagos-Ibadan axis” press.
As the southern parts of the county are also predominantly Christian, it is then argued that the philosophy and world-view of the dominant press is Judeo-Christian and that this spells an ideological disadvantage in the representation of northern issues and interests in the press. Daily Trust’s argument therefore seems to be that the Nigerian press is ideologically programmed to be anti-Islam and anti-Hausa/Fulani, and that this, in its perception, explains why the press subjectively blames every crisis on the Plateau on Muslim Hausa/Fulani.
Observations
The pattern of representation and the editorial posturing of the newspapers in the reportage of the conflicts do little to explicate and clarify the causes of the conflicts as a basis for defining their solution. For example, the position of Daily Trust that the Nigerian mainstream press is ideologically programmed as anti-Islam and anti-Hausa/Fulani, is as contentious as is contestable.
In so far as it has bearing on content and representation of issues, however, it has critical implications for the reportage of such issues, as already demonstrated. The superficial treatment of issues by the Nigerian Tribune, on the other hand, is no less disadvantageous to proper and informed understanding of these issues and this also has critical implications for representation.
For example, the dominant frame used in the coverage by the newspapers is that of “ethno-religious conflicts.” However, a close reading of most of the stories suggests that this description is more of an off-hand label or loose definition of the conflicts reported by the newspapers without much analysis or reflection.
This pattern of reporting has the potential to mask possible deeper issues in these conflicts. For, as has been pointed out by scholars, using ethnicity or religion and associated primordial factors to explain conflicts contributes to obscuring societal inadequacies and the individual and collective failings of the people.
The complaint by Daily Trust about people of northern Nigeria being unfairly represented by the Nigerian press has particular significance for the people of the Middle Belt, where the Jos Plateau, is located. For whereas a newspaper like Daily Trust has become well established and is a voice for the far north, there is no viable newspaper which overtly and consistently canvasses Middle Belt viewpoints.
This led recently to the establishment of an internet discussion forum called The Middle Belt Dialogue formed mainly to provide a medium for articulating issues affecting the region.
The Middle Belt Dialogue is an online discussion forum for members of the Middle Belt Forum, a socio-cultural organisation representing the minority populations of Nigeria’s middle belt region. This Dialogue, which is a free list serve hosted on Yahoo Groups was born partly as a response to a feeling of underrepresentation and misrepresentation of the area in main stream Nigerian and international media, as a consequence of which the existing political and economic cleavages and marginalisation of the region were being reinforced and perpetuated.
The main point in all of these is that in its representational pattern, the north feels marginalised or misrepresented by the mainstream press which is dominantly owned by southerners and based in Lagos or Ibadan. But for the people of the Middle Belt, this is a double jeopardy of misrepresentation, first, by the southern press, which the people of the region feel does not understand their worldview, and by the northern press which does not sympathise with their worldview.
Conclusion
This article has focused on the representation of ethno-religious conflicts by the Nigerian press. Using critical discourse analysis, the chapter has established a number of important observations.
First, is that most of the stories represented as “ethno-religious conflicts” even though that label is a casual label which has not been thoroughly analysed or scrutinised. This is attributable to sensationalism and superficial reportage and lack of investigative reporting.
Secondly, although the conflicts enjoy a lot of prominence in the press, there are differences in the emphases and narratives on the causes and effects of the conflicts. A section of the press alleges genocide while the others do not even hint at it. The contrasting emphasis can be located in the regional and religious inclinations of the newspapers, a tendency long associated with Nigerian journalism.
For example, the press was divided along religious lines during the controversy surrounding Nigeria’s membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1986 and the sharia riots of the early 2000s.
Thirdly, the pattern of representation of the conflicts tends to coincide with existing social and political cleavages. On the surface the conflicts appear to be driven by identity-laden issues like ethnicity and religion.
Critical analysis however indicates that other issues are at the root of conflicts, chiefly competition for political office and the economic benefits that come with it, corruption, poverty and inequality, and elite manipulation of primordial loyalties.
By its inability to investigate these issues thoroughly, the Nigerian press has failed in its public duty and is implicated in the production and reproduction of social inequality. The representation of issues, rather than clarify, tends to muddle up issues. This is capable of reinforcing and perpetuating prejudices within the polity. The overall pattern of coverage is thus problematic and as troubling as the situations producing it.
The article has been edited for space. For further enquiries please contact Dr. Tsado, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru PMB 2024, Bukuru, Plateau State, Nigeria
Email: tsado2000@yahoo.com
